Irv’s favorite son: Barry?

If Irving’s professional life lived up to the hype of TV's “Mad Men,” his personal life fit the mold of that classic TV show “My Three Sons” and the lifestyle as a Suburban family that America coming out of World War II ached to embrace.

Irv most likely met Ruth in Newark. They married in 1941 and had their first son, Barry in 1943. Donald the middle son was born in 1945 after the family had moved to Rutherford, and Bruce, the youngest in 1950.

The three boys could not have been more different had they been born to different parents, and the expectations for their success must have been immense.

Whether or not it is inspired sibling rivalry, I'm not certain, since all three brothers seemed entwined in both professional and private ways.

Yet as the eldest and perhaps the most gifted of the three, Barry must have felt the most pressure to achieve -- even though Donald must at the same time felt he had something to prove, standing in the shadow of an elder brother.

Barry oozed eloquence even his father lacked, breaking the mold of the stereotypical Jew by proving Jew kid from a Newark family could be cool.

He dressed cool, acted cool, and hung out with cool crowd in high school, engaging in sports like wrestling and swimming that gave him the macho most teens in the 50s craved -- and which made him extremely attractive to girls and he was drawn to them.

Because Barry and Donald were born about two years apart, they attended West Orange High school together briefly.

This must have been a burden for the geek-like Donald who hung out with geek-like friends and took up geek-like things such as jewelry making rather than sports.

While Bruce, born five years after Donald, may have seemed more fortunate in that he had not the shadow of either of them hanging over him, there must have been some residual effects from both Barry, who was popular among teachers and fellow students, and the extremely studious Donald.

Bruce, who graduated in 1969, apparently started working for Donald, who by that time had already gone into business, and had seen his business grow out of his father’s garage, and decided Bruce could help him – something that didn’t completely work out since I was hired in 1974 to replace Bruce – although Bruce continued to work for Barry, when Barry opened his beauty supply company in Verona.

In high school, Barry was a classic 50s middle-class kid, wearing his hair Elvis style, and when he wasn't wearing some sort of sports-jacket he wore button down shirts with long collars called high rollers considered very cool at the time.

Early on in high school, Donald looked very much like his father with thick-rimmed glasses and a tendency to wear bizarrely pattern shirts geeks often mistaken school. He would later more than make up for this -- perhaps taking lessons from his brother -- and in some ways exceeding Barry in tasteful attire.

Even the way Barry looked defied most of the stereotypes of Jews. He was fair-haired, almost Aryan in his features, and had a noble even an arrogant look -- like a young prince assured he would someday inherit his father's crown. He was that self-assured and equally ambitious.

Even when I knew him, he had the habit of repeating the word “seriously” something he was noted for in high school, a phrase that might have defined the seriousness of something he said or as a putdown, questioning the validity of some statement made by someone else.

As Aryan as he might have looked, Barry did not abandon his Jewish roots. He became a member of United Synagogue Youth, which was a youth movement for conservative Jews to use as a stepping stone to leadership as young Jews learned values and skills for leadership.

He also seemed to follow in his father’s footsteps by giving back to the community. While still in high school, he volunteered frequently at the nearby Lyons Veterans Hospital as well as the Kessler Institute of Rehabilitation located in his hometown of West Orange -- a hospital that had a close relationship with the still struggling nation of Israel.

Often called “Barr” by his closest friends, Barry got involved in a remarkable variety of other activities in high school from photography the horseback riding along with wrestling and the school's swim club. He may also have had literary ambitions, since he was also involved with the school's literary magazine -- although he may have been there only for the girls.

For all of Barry's academic prowess, he was every bit a classic 50s teen -- the kind exemplified in the later film grease or Pleasantville. he loved music and collected records and knew very well the social benefits of dancing and became a member of the social dance club.

Even more symbolic of that era’s teens, he worked in The Valley Sweet Shop as a soda jerk -- not terribly far from where he would set up his beauty supply business a decade later and easy stroll to South Mountain Reservation which was a tangle of trails that several local teens used as a Lover's Lane.

Barry exuded self-confidence from the way he combed his hair to the way he tilted his head, even engaging in public speaking early in his high school as if he already assumed, he would need it in a later career. His plans to study law in college may even have been his first steps towards a career in politics.

He was bold arrogant and seemed to believe he could not fail to someday obtain greatness.

It was difficult to know if the same schemes he later in hatched in his life went through his head even then: the land speculation, the business venture after business venture, or even a brief stint in movies (though this also had a dark side) -- schemes that seemed determined to outdo all the accomplishments of his father.

Barry married Gina LaRiccia in April 1977, inheriting the already established Gina’s Discount Beauty Supply, where I would work briefly with his brother, Bruce, making deliveries. This was a big to do with the reception held at the posh Glen Ridge County Club. Donald served as his best man.

But Barry had other business interests back in Newark where he apparently hobnobbed with a different kind of crowd, The Lucchese crime family, the smallest of the five major New York crime families. While this group mostly dealt in narcotics, it delved into a few other sidelines that included hijacking, gambling, loan sharking, illegal landfills, and pornography.

At the time, the northern Jersey branch was headed by Michael Taccettra, best known for the 21-month trial in which he beat the rap against the feds – one of the longest mob trials in history. Unfortunately, he was convicted in charges out of state, and could not run his organization. Leadership fell into the hands of his younger brother, Martin – with whom Barry had a close relationship.

Martin had been around for a while. I knew him in the early 1980s from his operating of several rock and roll clubs in northern and central New Jersey.

It is hard to tell if Barry’s relationship started that early, but most likely did. He had significant financial troubles in the early 1980s and may have turned to Martin and others. Federal authorities believe Barry became the finance guy for some of Martin’s operations.

The New Jersey branch in the early 1980s had grown in power with large loansharking and gambling operations in and around Newark.

Michael and a number of his high ranking members were indicted in 1985. The trial started in 1986 and ended with Michael and his associates being found not guilty in 1988.

In fighting, partly due to things that came out in the trial, created factions inside the organization, and there came an order from the New York faction to “whack” the Jersey Crew. Michael and Martin quickly sided with New York saving themselves, and won them uncontested leadership of the Jersey branch.

This came at a time when Bobby Manna plotted in Hoboken the murder of New York crime boss John Gotti and his brother, Gene. Federal authorities swept them up in early 1989.

In September 1989, Martin and Barry were charged in another scheme to bilk manufactures of video equipment. Barry had already left his mark as executive producer of two b-rated horror movies, released in 1987 and 1988. But in this scam, he was seen as the money man behind the operation.

Martin with Barry’s help had set up a video production company in 1987 ordering a vast amount of products on credit, which they promptly sold to pornography movie makers for cash – then went out of business, stiffing their creditors.

The charges were filed in California. Martin and Barry surrendered to the feds in New Jersey and got out on $50,000 bail.

Lawyers for Barry and Martin claimed media had sensationalized the whole business transaction by tying it to the $1 billion California pornography industry. Both men denied wrong-doing.

In December, the two men – faced with five counts of grand larceny and one count of conspiracy – challenged the legality of their arrest. A month later, both men dropped their challenge and agreed to go to California – and apparently prevailed in court.

But the feds kept their eye on Barry, and a year later, his home was among dozens of homes and businesses in four counties raided by the FBI where records were seized in an effort to find data on money laundering and insurance fraud schemes. Martin and Barry again apparently prevailed.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Barry and Gina parted ways. She apparently was still married to him leading up to the federal investigations, but by 1991, Barry found a new bride.

 On St. Valentine’s Day, Barry remarried to Kim Blanton, who apparently retired to Florida after Barry’s untimely death in 2002.

For the last decade of his life, he appeared to settle down to running family business which included Thymer Health Care, Carrara Marble Company – both still located in Fairfield, and the Garden State Hospice, in Cranford – a for-profit nursing home. He had gravitated into the nursing home field as a result of his company supplying medication carts for nursing homes. He had also invested in hospices in Oklahoma and Louisana.

“Hospice is a win-win-win situation in a nursing home,” he was quoted in one report. “The patient gets extra care, the nursing home gets help taking care of the patient and the family gets additional support.”

He called it “a tremendously under served area and highly competitive. But he also noted to turn a profit, the hospice must serve seven to ten patients in each nursing home.

“If we operate efficiently, we make a profit,” Barry said.

By far a sadder story and significantly more significant involves Irving’s youngest son, Bruce.

Born in 1950, Bruce came into an age different from the ones of his brothers, just as I differed from my uncles who were born before or during the war.

Bruce was roughly my age and so suffered many of the same issues adapting to a career as I did.

Barry and Donald while different in their approaches from each other were both very practical men with very practical ambitions.

Bruce had none or if he did, they were so vague he could not easily articulate them, and I got the feeling he was more than a little intimidated by his father and brothers while at the same time seem to love them dearly.

Bruce graduated West Orange High School in 1969, nearly a decade after Barry and Donald did, and apparently was hired on after Donald started Cosmetics Plus in 1968. He most likely worked in one or more of the retail stores, until they closed, and worked in the Pia Costa warehouse prior to my arrival there in June 1974.

I worked with Bruce a few times twice while working for Donald, once or maybe more while working for Barry -- and all those times I got along with him well but got the feeling he could not take himself seriously and so did not expect anyone else to either.

I learned later that I actually replaced Bruce when Donald and Stanley hired me.

Stanley did not trust Bruce, found him too flaky -- a prejudice Stanley would later display again when Gary got hired to be the new driver at the new warehouse a few years later.

I also think Stan did not like relying on his boss's brother and may have imagined Bruce running back to Donald if Stan gave him too much of a hard time-- something I could not imagine Bruce doing since I suspect Donald scared Bruce as much as he scared me or even Stanley.

Bruce resembled Barry more than he did Donald though did not dominate a room when he came into it the way Barry did.

Bruce seemed less substantial and less likely to look you in the eye unless he already knew you and liked you and trusted you. At the same time, he struck me as someone who didn't trust anyone easily though he clearly trusted and respected his family.

I most likely encountered Bruce first when I worked in the card company warehouse next door. But I did not recall him except as that other guy who worked with Stanley and drove the big red truck to make pickups and deliveries.

After I worked for Donald for a few months Stan would mumble from time to time how unreliable Bruce had been.

Stanley, like Donald and Barry, was born in that practical generation side that did not quite understand the emerging generation so closely associated with Woodstock and the Beatles. Stanley could not get the idea in his head that people could live carefree, a passing fad that helped ruin many of us who actually believed the hype the way Bruce seemed to.

I had more extensive contact with him later in 1974 when Donald brought Bruce back to help with the Christmas rush.

He and I got to interact more extensively, and I found I actually liked him despite the negative hype Stan had fed me, and Bruce seem to like me

He liked the fact that I laughed at his lame jokes and I liked him because his jokes were lame.

He was unpretentious and seemed to accept who he was without any pretense of being someone important.

At the same time, he struck me as someone suffering deep wounds which I could not comprehend since his family seemed to love him and he never took the world seriously enough for it to bring anything remotely hurtful into his life.

Stanley didn't trust Bruce to pack orders or to pick up merchandise on the road. So, Bruce largely loaded and unloaded trucks and ran for cases of merchandise we ordered him to get when we picked our orders -- a kind of workhorse but one who seemed to accept his role as if he expected nothing better or wanted anything better either.

Bruce apparently worked on and off for Barry at the beauty supply in Verona and appears to have lived with Barry from time to time as well.

His duties for Barry appear to have varied -- from picking orders for deliveries to various beauty salons to making deliveries himself on a route that covered nearly all of Northern New Jersey.  But Barry seemed to have one or more drivers and Bruce for the most part went along as a helper.

This was Bruce's role during a week or two long stretch when one of Barry's drivers called out sick and Donald lent him me as a driver.

It was literally the blind leading the blind.

Since Bruce was supposed to direct me because I was not familiar with the routes, we got lost as much as we found what we were looking for.

We laughed, joked, complained, exclaimed, cursed and generally made other fools of ourselves,

Yet as I recall it was the toughest week or two of labor I ever did, and despite my enjoying being lost with Bruce I was grateful to get back to Stanley and the less strenuous pickups and deliveries Donald demanded from me.

I saw Bruce only once after that during the long week when Donald, Barry, me, John Telson, Shark, Stanley and others gathered to make the final move from the old warehouse to the new,

It was a move that was more than just a move across town but one that altered the world as I knew it though I did not know it at the time.

Because we were so caught up in what we had to do, I could not tell if Bruce was happy or sad or even satisfied and whether he had yet found direction or someone to love or be loved by.

I never saw him again, but I heard about him about a decade later when I worked for a local newspaper and someone told me -- I don't recall who maybe Gary -- that Bruce had died.

Barry appears to have made a living – on and off – as a used car salesman from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s.

Bruce married Sandra Candura in May1975. Born in Newark in April 1951, Sandra was a graduate of Belleville High School and received her bachelor’s degree from Montclair State College. She taught on semester at East Side High School in Newark, where she taught English and English as a second language before she was hired as a teacher at Belleville Junior High in 1974 where she taught remedial English for three years.

In 1977, Sanda was hired as a reading specialist at Belleville High School.

She was already well-traveled having made several trips to Europe as a college student. In 1972, she was among 14 students that went to study at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

A year later she took a three-week sojourn in early 1973 that oddly enough included a close friend of mine. Some of the students remained in London, while others went on to visit Munich, Vienna, and still others remained in Paris at the Sorbonne to study for the winter semester.

She and Bruce lived in Belleville for most of their marriage, although apparently moved to Caldwell in the mid-1980s where they both died on the same day, April 16, 1988.

Because the police reports are filed in some dark basement somewhere in a paper form, they were not yet available for review by the time I wrote this. But there are hints as to something terrible occurring, although the official story about Sandra’s death published on April 21 is vague and doesn’t mention Barry at all – even though he died at the same time she did.

“Mrs. Gottheimer died April 16 in her home,” this report said. “She was recently named Teacher of the Year (at Belleville High.)

Her obituary published on April 19 said she was “the beloved wife of the late Bruce.”

Oddly, his obituary was not published until April 27, also pointing out that he was the “husband of the late Sandra.”

Sandra and Bruce had two separate funerals. Hers took place on April 20 with a mass at St. Peter’s Church in Belleville. She was buried at Glendale Cemetery.

Bruce had a graveside service heled at Beth Israel Cemetery in Woodbridge on April 17.

Although several stories followed over the next year about Sandra’s being honored at Teacher of the Year, none mentioned Bruce in association with her, even though the stories noted that she was being honored “posthumously.” For the most part, these stories merely said, Sandra had died, but with one glaring exception.

A May 12, 1988 story noted that Sandra’s mother represented her daughter at the awards ceremony “because Gottheimer was killed last month.”

 

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